Phenomenological Approach to Product Design Pedagogy: A Study on Students’ Experiences in Interdisciplinary and Intercultural Settings

Product design pedagogical approaches require a specific mix of competences that demand multiplicity of perspectives, hybrid knowledge that exceeds professional field silos, and continuous problem reformulations. To do this, design studio education follows many traditions, among which is design critique. Design critique is believed to provide students with the ability to reframe design problems, but it can also lead to misunderstandings. The necessity of this approach is put into question by assessing the experiences of a group of students in an intensive course structured for interdisciplinary work, intercultural teams, and projects based on challenges from practice, where the critique was not part of the pedagogical program. The course was conducted over four consecutive weeks and supported a hands-on approach based on an interdisciplinary work between the areas of product design and occupational therapy, with the participation of Brazilian and Norwegian bachelor students and professors. Students responded to questionnaires prior to and at the end of the course that addressed their expectations of and experiences in the course. A qualitative analysis of the students’ responses was carried out based on content analysis. The joint work with occupational therapy students and professionals, as well as the opportunity to develop projects that targeted demands from people with disabilities, were shown to be factors that contributed to students’ engagement in the course and overall gain of knowledge. The experiences reported here indicate that the phenomenological approach to the design studio, which focuses on providing an immersive environment, deserves more attention from educators, and that design critique is not necessarily a crucial ingredient in design education

Lost in translation: Reconsidering reflective practice and design studio pedagogy

Drawing on empirical research done in the early 1980s, Donald Schon developed the theory of 'reflective practice', putting forward the idea that the design studio teacher is a 'coach' who helps students align with disciplinary norms and start to 'think like an architect'. Drawing on actor-network theory as a tool of analysis and way of thinking, this article outlines an alternative, 'performative' account of design pedagogy which both challenges and adds to Scho¨ n's explanations of design teaching and learning. Close examination of teachers and students in action shows the teacher to be but one of a host of human and non-human actors, all of whom work to assemble what we call a design studio. Learning to 'think like an architect' is but one possible outcome of this assembling process

Value creation through trust in technological-mediated social participation

In this article, we advocate for the use of a social-technical model of trust to support interaction designers in further reflecting on trust-enabling interaction design values that foster participation. Our rationale is built upon the believe that technological-mediated social participation needs trust, and it is with trust-enabling interactions that we foster the will for collaborate and share—the two key elements of participation. This article starts by briefly presenting a social-technical model of trust and then moves on with establishing authors rational that interconnects trust with technological-mediated social participation. It continues by linking the trust value to the context of design critique and critical design, and ends by illustrating how to incorporate the trust value into design. This is achieved by proposing an analytical tool that can serve to inform interaction designers to better understand the potential design options and reasons for choosing them

Laboring Artists: Art Streaming on the Videogame Platform Twitch

The relationship between labor and play is complex and multifaceted, particularly so as it relates to the playing of games. With the rise of the online streaming of games and play these platforms and activities have expanded the associated practices in ways that are highly nuanced and dictated in part by the platform itself. This paper explores the question as to whether the types of labor practices found in games hold across other non-game activities as they engage with streaming through an observational study of art streamers on Twitch. By examining art streamers and comparing their labor to that of games and game streaming, we find that not only are they similar in practice, but that that the structure of Twitch and platforms such as YouTube push this conformity. Thus, play and labor are not opposed and are in fact intermingled in these activities, in ways that are becoming highly platformized

Learning With and Because of Each Other: A High School Art Portfolio Class as a Community of Practice

This educational criticism of a senior high school art portfolio class asks: In what ways does the community of practice developed within a successful studio art program at a high school contribute to an understanding of its success? Interviews, documents, photographs, and classroom observations gathered over one year inform this qualitative study. Participants include three Portfolio co-teachers, twenty Portfolio students, and two younger art students. Analysis focuses on the interplay of structure and participation that shapes learning among the participants, both as a group and individually. Five themes emerge as valuable ways of understanding the community of practice: team teaching, students working in the hallways, the class as a community or family, students serving as teachers and mentors for each other, and the relative freedom of choice students have to work in ways that resonate with who they are, who they are becoming, and what engages their attention. Findings suggest: mutual engagement in the joint enterprise of creating and evaluating the bodies of artwork produced within a capstone portfolio class sustains and renews a vibrant community of practice; newcomers and old timers have dissertation and easy access to each other; quasi-studio spaces along the hallways contribute to the ease with which students serve as teachers and mentors for each other; discussion, deliberation, and consensus building contribute to a cognitive culture that provides models of what adult artists do; teachers serve as art experts, counselors, and brokers between the portfolio class\u27s community of practice and other communities of practice to which they and their students belong or hope to belong; and teachers develop simultaneously caring and demanding relationships with students. A high school studio art program grounded in expressionism and focused on voice need not have to choose between self-expression and demanding aesthetic standards, or among practices proposed within the constraints of any of the models of art education to have surfaced over the last several decades. Instead, elements of multiple vantage points emerge through the interplay of structure and participation to sustain a community of practice that supports students as they try to give visual form to their particular voices

From Page to Stage to Screen and Beyond

A group of Chicago youth media organizations have embarked on an evaluation process with adult program alumni to assess the degree to which hands-on media production and dissemination contributes to developing productive, independent, and engaged citizens. This report sets the stage for the evaluation, which began in late 2012 and will run through 2013, highlighting the work of youth media organizations in Chicago and exploring six dimensions, or outcome areas, that youth media organizations work within: journalism skills, news/media literacy, civic engagement, career development, youth development, and youth expression

Experimental Capitalism : A study of Design for ‘Future Digital Manners’

From the introduction: The question of how aesthetic practices create economic value is a question of the way in which specific artistic and critical practices feed into a capitalistic order of production. In this paper I draw attention to this question within the practice of Critical Design. I study a 4-week design brief that took place at the Royal College of Art in London 2009. More generally, I account for the inclusion of artistic tools in the process of invention as a response to a capitalistic logic of order, where economic value are dependent on the valorisation of affective labour and provocative means of invention. This exploration aims to contribute to a temporal-ontological approach to innovation following the definition by Sanford Kwinter saying that: ‘… no novelty appears without becoming and no becoming without novelty’ (Kwinter 2001 p. 5). From my participation in the brief I consider a specific artistic intervention called the Berlin Street experiment and the way in which the experience of that event co-constitute the experimental setting

Touched with All the Radiance that a Sudden Sun Discloses

The thread running through my work is a constant impulse to rend and repair; to make, unmake, and remake. This repetitive and circular approach allows me to confront the cyclical nature of gendered oppression. What does it mean to make something beautiful and then to dismantle it? How do we reckon with the pieces that remain? By deconstructing the beautiful and lovingly crafted objects that I spend hours making, I recenter “craft” as a verb rather than a noun, forcing myself and my audience to resist the comforting illusion of certainty. I contextualize my piecework and quilting in a long line of American women who have wielded needle and thread to speak truth to power. Informed by intersectional feminist studies and grounded in the historical tragedy of the witch hunts of the Middle Ages, my research plumbs the confluence of quiltmaking and language, both encoded and overt. I believe that textile crafts, as the media least reified by the fine art establishment, hold a potent ability to confront the capitalist, sexist, and colonialist assumptions propping up the false dichotomy between mind and body, between art and craft, between those who are permitted to speak and those who are silenced

Play is everything : materials + play = learning

This model making based research project looks at how various materials—produce, board games, toys and curriculums—create opportunities for learning through play. Play creates intimate relationships that are generated between the spaces we inhabit and the objects and people that surround us, focusing on cognitive responses. This paper aims to further awareness of one’s perception of play and how all forms of play create meaningful relationships and improve cognitive development, material awareness and critical thinking skills. Play provides students with opportunities to learn and allow unlimited variations on the learning environment. This research explores various forms of play through farming, interviewing, photographing, researching, making and creating a teaching practice around play. It asks: How do others deine play? How does play accelerate cognitive development? What materials, objects and practices facilitate play? How might the creation of games and toys better our understanding of play? How is “play “a vital role within education? This paper addresses these questions through multiple studies (written journal, photographic journal and model testing) to explore experiences and definitions of play. Finally, this paper posits a curriculum to enable students to explore their personal perceptions of play and understand the importance of play. Developing multiple board games and toys enabled the construction of user studies to implement feedback for improved educational impact. This research pushes boundaries in arts education, engaging students in meaningful connections with others and the materials they interact with—a practice that will enhance any creative classroom